Richard Baumgartner, disgraced ex-judge, dead at 70

Richard Baumgartner, who served 19 years as Knox County Criminal Court judge before resigning in disgrace amid a drug scandal, died Tuesday. He was 70.

A family member found the former judge unconscious at his home on Rush Miller Road in East Knox County around 4:15 p.m., according to Knox County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Martha Dooley. Deputies found no signs of foul play at the scene but gave no indication of cause of death, pending an autopsy.

Baumgartner, a New York native, graduated from the University of Tennessee School of Law and practiced in Knoxville as a defense attorney before Gov. Ned McWherter appointed him to the Criminal Court bench in 1992 to replace Randy Nichols, who had stepped down to serve as district attorney general.

Baumgartner held the post until March 2011, when he resigned and pleaded guilty to official misconduct for buying pain pills from a felon on probation in his court. He headed to federal prison two years later to serve a six-month sentence for lying to investigators.

After it was revealed Baumgartner had been snorting painkillers on the bench and holding court while high, defendants in some high-profile cases won new trials.

“To go from being a sitting Criminal Court judge to being a convicted felon and incarcerated in the federal criminal justice system is a long, long way to fall,” said Knoxville attorney Dennis Francis, who said he’s “known Richard forever.”

“It just seemed one disaster after another was following Richard,” Francis said, “and he was the architect of his own demise.”

Baumgartner made legal history while on the bench. He pushed to allow cameras in the courtroom for the first time in Tennessee. He founded a Drug Court program that proved a model in the state. He presided over the televised trial in a bizarre love triangle case that would earn national headlines, and he landed another highprofile case — Knox County’s only accused serial killer, Thomas Dee “Zoo Man” Huskey.

He also presided over the case of Raynella Dossett Leath, tried repeatedly as a black widow in the death of her husband, West Knox County barber David Leath, and over the trials of the four men and one woman convicted in the 2007 carjacking and torture-killing of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Those two cases were among those that were re-tried.

Even as rumors of Baumgartner’s lifestyle off the bench began to bubble up in the mid2000s, his work ethic and legal decision-making drew praise from attorneys and various legal groups. He twice won re-election.

“Judge Baumgartner was a personable, fair and firm judge who always tried to do the right thing,” said Knoxville attorney Gregory P. Isaacs. “He always conducted himself with passion and integrity. We’re all human.”

Baumgartner became addicted to pain pills while being treated for a broken toe. He began buying the pills from Christopher Lee Gibson, who was on probation in Baumgartner’s court. He would meet Gibson in a trailer park, where he would buy 10-20 pills as often as two to three times a week.